


All Things Shall Fade

by Briar_Rose_Bramble



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 08:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4428446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briar_Rose_Bramble/pseuds/Briar_Rose_Bramble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The castle – so long dormant – is starting to come alive. It's stretching like a cat, shivers of magic and memory working their way down the spines of its many staircases and up into its tallest towers as it wakes, unsheathing and re-sheathing its claws as it scents the air for the coming change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Things Shall Fade

**Author's Note:**

  * For [westcoastmalone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/westcoastmalone/gifts).



Spring tends to arrive late to the Dark Castle, but when it does, it comes in a sudden rush of green shoots and birdsong.

Rumpelstiltskin stands at the open window of his tower room, gazing out at the brightly lit garden below. In truth, it isn't quite warm enough to lounge in the watery sunbeams that reach him; despite the brightness of the day, the air still holds the distinct nip of winter, as if the slightest breeze could send the tentative spring day scurrying back to the warmer climes of the south.

However, the ice and snow have disappeared from all save the highest peaks of the mountains that surround the castle, and the last of the melt water is gone, leaving the world vibrant and fresh. Everything has a greenness to it; even the breeze carries the scent of newness with it, and Rumpelstiltskin drinks it all in, wondering if there is a way to capture this feeling of rejuvenation in a bottle.

As he watches, a small figure wends its way along the path in the grounds below, a wicker basket held at its side.

Even if she weren't his sole companion in this desolate place, he would recognise her, even from this height. From the fall of her hair and the sway of her hips, right down to the tread of her narrow feet upon the stair, he knows her by heart. (He cannot help it; unlike the rest of his deal-won treasures, this one cannot be confined to a cabinet and is forever underfoot.)

His maid's step has been lighter since the snows had started to melt. It had started with enthusiastic cleaning of the castle. _Spring cleaning_ , she termed it, as if it hadn't been her job to clean the place since she had arrived. Her already tedious conversation has become mired in sickly sentiments about _letting the light in_ and _freshening up the place_. Honestly, it would be enough to drive a rational man to distraction, and Rumpelstiltskin hasn't exactly been the most balanced of creatures these past few centuries.

As he watches, Belle pauses beneath one of the large apple trees that line the south wall, standing on her tiptoes to reach one of the lower branches and sniff at the blossom. The scent can't be too pleasing, for she stands back to regard the tree with her hands on her hips, then darts back in the direction from which she came, her basket forgotten on the path, her wide skirts billowing behind her.

She's an odd creature, even by Rumpelstiltskin's standards, and he keeps company with mad men and evil queens.

Tilting his face towards the sky, he closes his eyes and enjoys the soft sensation on sunlight on his skin. So often his deals are made in shadows and darkness, so often his days are spent closeted inside, that he's forgotten how sweet sunlight's kiss can be.

When he opens his eyes, Belle has come back into view. He has to squint a little against the sunlight to be certain of what he is seeing and even then he doesn't understand it. Why his maid should chose to drag the rickety old ladder out of the castle and into the garden is beyond him, yet unease is already beginning to prickle across his shoulders. He had presumed that she had returned it to whatever dark cupboard she had found it in, after she had had nearly broken her neck tumbling from the creaking thing the week before, leaving it to crumble with all the other relics of the castle's former life. Perhaps she is planning a bonfire.

It's a futile hope, and he knows it. Belle won't let a little thing like near-death dissuade her from a course of action. It's his own fault and he knows it. He spoils her, and the silly creature is so certain that no harm will befall her while in his care that she allows herself to be careless.

Sure enough, as he watches, Belle positions the ladder on the uneven ground beneath the tree and places one small foot on the bottom rung.

Rumpelstiltskin closes his eyes again, only this time there is nothing restful in his expression. The furrow between his eyebrows deepens briefly as his eyes squeeze more tightly shut, and then he is gone, leaving only a fitful swirl of smoke behind.

"No, no, no," he scolds, arriving just behind her. "I will not have my comfort disregarded and my routine interrupted because my maid has a broken neck!"

It is a testament to how long Belle has spent in his company that she does not scream, just jumps a little and turns around with narrowed eyes.

"This tree should have been pruned," she accuses, although her cheeks flush pink. "If all this blossom takes, then the weight of the fruit is going to bring the whole branch down."

Rumpelstiltskin finds himself staring at the branch she is pointing towards. It's true that it is long and thin and gloriously bedecked in blossom, jutting precariously from the main trunk of the tree, and he supposes that this could perhaps prove to be a problem. What little he remembers from human life was centred around sheep and turnips and grubbing for roots in the frost. His chilly valley did not support much more than brambleberries when it came to fruit. Apples – at least he _thinks_ this is an apple tree – are a mystery to him.

"You an expert, are you?" He means to sound sardonic, but instead it comes out as a genuine enquiry.

Belle blinks, the challenge falling from her face, leaving her sad and small. "I supposed the Avonlea you saw didn't have much in the way of vegetation."

Or habitable architecture, or whole, unbroken people. Truthfully the Ogre War had all but scrubbed that once pretty port from the map. Thinking about the place makes Rumpelstiltskin uncomfortable – any echo of the Ogre Wars stir up his stomach, even now – and he shrugs.

"It used to be known as the Garden of Misthaven," Belle informs him, and the name sparks a recollection somewhere in the musty depths of his human memory. It tugs at him faintly, and he recognises the muted yearning of wanderlust with surprise. Someone, his father maybe, had spoken of such a place, describing the richness of the earth, the warmth of the sun on the fields and the shear abundance of good things to eat. As a boy, such stories had made his stomach rumble and his heart ache at the thought of a place where finally they could settle down, and his father might be happy.

There wasn't much hope in his childhood that was not desperate and Rumpelstiltskin is surprised to find that it _hurts_ to learn that such a place had been rendered unrecognisable by war. He sent powerful magic to restore it, but it will still take many years for the place to regain its former glory.

"I see," is all he says.

"My parents wanted to make sure that I would be able to make decisions that would only benefit our country," Belle explains, her eyes soft, as if her focus has moved to a place he can't quite see. "Where to build, where to till. I studied with the land agents until I was sixteen. The orchards were a favourite place of mine."

The conversation falters then and Belle blushes further, ducking her head as if she fears she has said too much. Rumpelstiltskin cannot understand her discomfort, but finds that he shares it all the same. He watches the pink as it creeps across her cheeks and gathers at the base of her throat, looking abruptly away when the stain continues to spread.

"The tree will be fine," he assures her, finding that his voice has turned to gravel while she spoke. He clears his throat and adds, "These trees have never known the hands of a gardener, not in three hundred years. They will survive another spring."

He means to comfort her, but when Belle raises her chin he knows that he has somehow said the wrong thing. The wistful look has gone from her eyes, replaced by that direct, piercing look she sometimes employs. "You mean you haven't noticed?"

"Noticed what?" Rumpelstiltskin demands, raising his annoyance like a shield before her. He has noticed a thousand things, like the fact that his maid has begun to sprinkle herself with lavender water and now leaves behind the soft impression of a late summer garden wherever she goes. Or that she has taken to stealing down to the kitchens in her nightgown when the early light of morning foreshortens her sleep to brew a cup of tea to sneak back into her chamber. The slap of her bare feet against the flagstones as she scurries along, raising herself up onto tip toe to avoid prolonged contact with the iron cold floor, the arch of her foot and the slightest hint of well-turned ankle taunting him with each hurried step. He notices, alright.

"The castle is waking up," Belle tells him. Slowly, as if he were a child. "Things are changing."

"Nothing changes," he tells her with a frown. "Nothing _ever_ changes."

"Nothing did," she amends "when I first arrived. But now things seem to be speeding up. The milk in the jug was always fresh, but last week it began to spoil so I poured it away and new milk arrived. Then dust started to fall, even in the places where I'm not supposed to clean."

Rumpelstiltskin's first thoughts are of Cora. There's a subtlety in such an encroachment which Regina has always lacked, that smacks of his former flame. The thought of her magic at play in his castle brings anger, hot and heavy, rising up inside him. It's tempered by the dull ache of remembered longing and the still-sharp cut of betrayal.

_But Cora is dead_ , he reminds himself. Regina swore to it and for all her growing guile, the girl is still a terrible liar. The feeling subsides, and something close to calm returns, but they leave a sickly unease in their wake. _Who, then_ , he wonders, _would seek to engage him in such a manner?_ Maleficent is unlikely to leave the dank halls of her fortress, and the earnest one, Regina's sister, has yet to learn any sort of delicacy of hand…

Who can he be overlooking? Can he have dismissed a threat, leaving himself vulnerable to an unexpected attack? Or is there perhaps a new player on the board, one that has found a way to hide itself from the potted omniscience the Sight allows?

Belle sighs, and the puff of her breath just brushes against his cheek, breaking in upon his thoughts. "I think it's me."

This brings the most feared and respected wizard in all the Four Kingdoms up short and he finds himself blinking foolishly, like a confused owl.

"You?" he splutters, then adds after a moment's thought, "what do you mean, the places you aren't supposed to clean?"

"Well," says Belle, a little awkwardly, choosing bizarrely to answer the second question. "The locked doors..."

"Yes?" Rumpelstiltskin is well aware that there are locked doors in his castle. There are things he does not wish to risk falling into the wrong hands, not if this world is to fall to Regina's curse. The enchanted items he keeps in the Great Hall are mere parlour tricks compared to some of the magicks he keeps locked away – dark and terrible – yet he cannot see their relevance now.

"They aren't locked anymore," Belle explains in a rush. "At first I thought you must have unlocked the doors because you wanted me to clean in there, too, but you never mentioned it and I wondered if maybe the locks had simply… worn away."

Something sharp twists low in his belly and stings in his throat. It tastes like bile, and Rumpelstiltskin is shocked to recognise it as fear; something he has not allowed himself to feel in years. "You aren't to go in there," he commands.

"I don't," she replies pertly, oblivious to his panic. "It wouldn't be so awfully dusty if I did."

Then her face softens, and the tight knot inside his gut begins to ease a little in response. Rumpelstiltskin does not know how a person can feel as many emotions in one day as Belle can express during the course of a conversation. He finds it exhausting, infuriating, but also oddly addictive. Belle feels everything so keenly that sometimes her emotions can roll over onto him. Now she is soft, but sad as well. He can feel it in the way she hesitates and in the words that still wait to be spoken.

When Belle does speak, it's with a quietness quite at odds with the forthright creature from before. "The worst thing is the flower."

It's not what he expects. "The flower?"

"The rose you bought me from the old woman who came to the door," she reminds him. "It was perfect for so long, but now its petals are beginning to drop, one by one." She shakes her head. "I can't say why, but it just makes me so terribly sad to see it. Sour milk is one thing, but…"

She trails off and the sentence hangs unfinished between them and for one awful moment Rumpelstiltskin wonders if she knows; about the rose, about the knight who hammered on the door to the Dark Castle, about the fact that he has wandered perilously close to breaking his oath that her family and friends would be safe.

"It's just a flower," she finishes.

"Yes," he agrees. "Just a flower." He throws a careless gesture towards the tree, and the offending branch is no more. "Will that do?" he asks solicitously.

Belle winces, but at least she is distracted. "I'm not sure you'll ever make a land agent, but I suppose the rest of the tree will survive."

"Good," he says with an air of finality. Another wave of his hand and the ladder disappears as well. "Then we will have no more delays to contend with." Pulling an oversized pocket watch from out of the ether, Rumpelstiltskin consults its face with an exaggerated expression of concentration. "It's almost five o'clock, dearie!"

* * *

 

Tea is a quiet affair. Normally Belle uses the time to talk at him, asking endless questions about his travels, his deals or the artefacts he keeps squirrelled away throughout the castle, but not tonight. Tonight, each is firmly sequestered within their own thoughts. Belle has pulled her legs up underneath her, an uncomfortable-looking position but apparently one that lends itself to introspection. Rumpelstiltskin sits upright, but his thoughts are no less focussed.

Belle's observations about the castle are insightful but incomplete. There are other changes creeping through his domain, some as small as a loose button on a coat or an extra mote of dust floating in the sun. Now that he is aware of them, Rumpelstiltskin is appalled that he did not notice a thing himself, and can only blame his preoccupation with the coming curse, for there is no other permissible explanation.

He brings his cup to his lips only to pause and eye the milk jug with suspicion. There's an echo of a memory – _and why is he plagued with memories, all of a sudden, when he has been so very careful to forget?_ – that speaks of a centuries-old agreement with a far away homestead for provisions in exchange for protection from a dragon. It's an agreement as old as the castle, from long before his tenure began. Rumpelstiltskin wonders if the farm's current incumbents are as confused by this new development as he is.

Throughout the meal, his eyes are drawn to the crystal vase that holds Belle's rose. As he watches, a faded petal drifts free from the bloom and settles softly on the shelf below. It isn't the only one there, although the curled brown edges of its compatriots suggest that they fell some time before. It's troubling. He is troubled by it and, if Belle is reluctant to clean the area beneath it, he imagines that she is, too.

It is not often that he succumbs to fits of conscience; there is little room for scruples when one is planning the end of the world after all, but he can no longer find humour in the punishment he dealt out to his maid's over-zealous beau. Something about it leaves him uncomfortable, self-conscious even, as if he has somehow gone too far, even for him; that he is guilty of crassness and is embarrassing himself. It's this, more than any shame or guilt that persuades him to relent. He will restore the knight, he resolves, and return him back to Avonlea before it is too late.

Rumpelstiltskin sits up in his chair, startling Belle, whose teacup clatters against her saucer loudly enough to make her wince. She is still rather cautious around the crockery, ever wary of her occasional clumsiness. She raises her eyebrows in query, but Rumpelstiltskin barely notices, his thoughts elsewhere.

_Too late._

The castle has been enchanted for hundreds of years, this he knows. There was magic in its halls even before he arrived and he has done little since but stockpile more in the form of trinkets and keepsakes and the spoils of his deals. The very stones and mortar are likely saturated in the stuff. Really, he ought to have _expected_ something like this to happen.

The castle – so long dormant – is starting to come alive. It's stretching like a cat, shivers of magic and memory working their way down the spines of its many staircases and up into its tallest towers as it wakes, unsheathing and re-sheathing its claws as it scents the air for the coming change.

There can be little doubting it. Rumpelstiltskin always knew there would be signs – has planned on their appearance, even – but he never anticipated that they would take such a form. Perhaps he has been a little preoccupied of late, for it seems that Regina's curse – _his longed-for curse_ – has been creeping up on him unnoticed.

_How long can he have left?_ There are things he needs to do before the curse can be allowed to take hold, pieces he still needs to move into place, deals to be struck. A certain princess and her shepherd are dutifully clawing their way towards their happily ever after, but his plans rest upon more than True Love, or even what it creates. His long fingers tap restlessly against the table top as he peers into the murky fog of What May Be, hoping – always hoping – for a single glimpse of Baelfire's beloved face, but as always that world is hidden from him.

Apparently resigning any hope of an answer, Belle returns to her tea, daintily plucking the wafer thin slices of cucumber from her sandwich and eating them one by one. She will eat the crust next, then the carefully buttered triangles of bread – Rumpelstiltskin knows this as clearly as he knows that he will drink three cups of tea in this one sitting, no matter how little food he consumes. It's not the Sight, much as he would prefer that it was, but rather familiarity that underlines this certainty

He needs to focus. There are so many loose threads to weave together before the end and it would not do to drop any of them in his haste to see things done.

His chair scrapes harshly against the flagstones as he pushes it back, leaving his second cup of tea half drunk. Belle stares at him, but he pays her no mind and he rises from the table to stride out of the door.

Climbing the stairs, he returns to his tall window to think, to recommence the planning that Belle's attempted horticulture brought to an abrupt halt.

When he returns to the Great Hall later, both Belle and the tea things have gone, whisked away to the large kitchen below. For a moment he cannot remember why he has returned, when a slight movement catches his eye as another sad, curled petal drifts down to the shelf below. Rumpelstiltskin snatches up the flower with a grimace, turns on his heel, and is gone.

* * *

 

The knight is slightly worse off for his sojourn in a flower vase. His clothing dishevelled and dusty, and his boots missing, but the colour is already returning to his cheeks as he sleeps off the last of the spell. Rumpelstiltskin has no idea where he originally hailed from, but believes that the high castellated battlements of Avonlea are as good a place as any to leave him. The air is warmer here, coming in soft gusts from the west, carrying the smell of distant rains and fresh, green things on the wind. Rumpelstiltskin steps back, dusting his hands on the stiff brocade of his coat, and looks around, going as far as to peer down into the grounds below.

It would seem that Belle's land agents are already hard at work, reclaiming their fields and orchards from the privations of war. In the low light, it is just possible to discern the walled gardens and their burgeoning crops far below, but the fading sunshine smudges the scene leaving it indistinct, adumbrate. The effect is a pleasant one, however, leaving behind a muted impression of new growth and joyous industry.

Behind him, the knight groans quietly, but Rumpelstiltskin does not turn. There will be some lingering aftereffects from a long enchantment, he knows, but his duty can be considered discharged simply by returning the young man to the home of his not-quite father-in-law. He can see with his own eyes that the land is safe and returning to prosperity; his oath is fulfilled and there is no reason for him to linger.

Reminded once more of his plans, Rumpelstiltskin considers his next move. He needs to find a way to place himself in close proximity to Snow White and her swelling belly, that is certain. Snow and Charming will only turn to him when truly desperate, and it is a deal he longs to make. He also needs Regina to become reckless enough to bargain away the comfort and power he will need in her land – _he shudders_ – without magic if his plans are to succeed. While money and privilege are no substitute for real power, they will have their uses, even in that distant time when the curse has broken.

Another memory surfaces, from long ago, of the perpetual cold and hunger of a long winter. Like many of his memories it is unpleasant, but Rumpelstiltskin makes no to attempt quash it. The discomfort the memory brings – the slight tickle of fear deep inside his belly – will serve as a stark reminder of all he stands to lose. The fear, the desperation, the awful, shameful reality of what it means to be powerless – he must cling to them all if he is to ensure that it will never be his fate again. His fingers grip unconsciously onto the smooth sandstone of the parapet as he stares blindly down at the fields and gardens.

_There will be no peasant hovel waiting for him on the other side of the curse,_ he reassures himself _. No, he will have a fine house, taxes from the market and rents from the village to keep him fed and warm_. His imagination twists and turns as he pictures the life he will demand for himself and his fingers twitch at the thought, his claw-like nails scraping jaggedly against the stone. _He will have a carriage and matched horses rather than a tumbledown barrow he must drag behind him. And a wife, a beautiful wife at his side to welcome Baelfire home as a mother should, with heart and arms open wide. A wife with the dark hair and blue eyes of the women he has loved before, but also with a gentle kindness that softens her face and leaves her sweet and warm._

_They will have a garden_ , he decides, as his heartrate begins to slow. Warm, south-facing, with rich earth to bring forth all manner of fruits and good things. Bae will like that.

With this in mind, he allows his feet to carry him him down the steep stairs and out into the fields beyond the gates.

The signs of war are more visible at ground level; huge gouges in the earth and the broken shells of fallen buildings still mar the landscape, and a quiet pall of sadness hangs over the place. It stirs further memories for Rumpelstiltskin, of life after war. Crops can be replanted, fields retilled, but it takes a generation or more for the people to shake off the weight of conflict.

Turning away from the low fields, he makes his way to the high walls of the orchard, finds a gate and slips through unnoticed. Inside he catches a glimpse of the old Avonlea – Belle's Avonlea – in the handful of established trees that dwarf their newer companions. Spring is further ahead and many of them have already shed their petals, which now blanket the ground in pinks and whites. They are soft underfoot and each step sends perfume into the air.

He does not intend to linger, but soon Rumpelstiltskin finds that the sun begins to set in earnest as night creeps in. Just before it sinks beneath the horizon, it sends up one final flair of brilliant light and the sky turns molten with fire. It's a true sunset, a thousand times removed from the sickly glow of battle fires that bathed Avonlea in a wan glow the last time he visited. For a few long moments, the orchard is saturated in rose-gold light.

Something aches inside him at the sight. Beauty always leaves him a little sad, a little desperate, and he turns away.

* * *

 

Rumpelstiltskin cannot recall where he plans should take him next, so his magic decides for him and deposits him neatly back home. He arrives by the tall cabinet that houses his showier possessions and for a long while he simply stares at the empty vase. Every item he has acquired will be joining him in the new world including, he now decides, this one. Regina has not bothered to unravel the curse far enough to find every surprise he has hidden inside, something Rumpelstiltskin knows with absolute certainty. If she had she would know that he plans to smuggle magic in with him, in the form of his hoarded treasures and would already be taking steps to stop him. She would also have been reminded of one of magic's eternal laws; that every curse can be broken. The vase itself may not have magical properties, but it has other qualities that will sustain him until such times as he can be reunited with his son.

Turning to leave, he realises that he is not alone, but that Belle is asleep in front of the fire. She is curled up against the soft leather of one of the large armchairs, the high wings almost obscuring her from view. Rumpelstiltskin means to leave her in to doze in peace when he notices the book lying open on her lap. If it falls it will wake her with a start and quite possibly damage the binding and it is only sensible to lift it away with careful fingers.

It's not often that Belle is still. Like many mortals, she burns to fast and so bright that Rumpelstiltskin can almost see her burning up in front of him, and it's something of a guilty pleasure to see her like this with the glow of the embers gently illuminating her face and bringing gold-red highlights out in her hair.

His brows draw together in a frown.

It's not the first time he's found her curled up in an armchair by the hearth, nor is it the first time he's paused to admire the play of light across the rounded curve of her cheek or the deep shadow cast by her sooty lashes. She's lovely, always lovely, but this time he looks and finds that something about the tableau is wrong.

The leather of the chair is cracked from long use. The hall is dimly lit, and the stone floor still clings to winter's chill. With the sun set, there is nothing of springtime here, and Belle has placed a blanket across her knees. The cloth is rich, finely embroidered with silk thread, but it looks tired after the petal carpets and green canopies of the orchards. The fire's glow, once so lovely, seems dim and dismal compared to the wide open spaces of Avonlea, flushed with the brilliant glow of the setting sun.

Belle belongs in there, he understands, amid the lush gardens and soft voices of the south, not trapped in the dark halls of his castle. Like a bloom she will fade in time; kept indoors she will sicken and wilt. He has long been aware of the unkindness he does in keeping her here by his side; to ask Regina to send her into the new world at his side would be to destroy her.

He had not yet gathered the courage to face this particular wish; for Belle to number among the delights he carries with him through the curse and somehow that makes it worse. There wasn't even the time to imagine the life they might lead there beyond the haziest of barely realised desires and all too soon he will have forgotten her altogether, just as she must forget him.

His chest feels tight, and he blames the heavy pollen of Avonlea as his throat begins to ache and his eyes itch. He tugs at his intricately tied neckerchief, hoping to ease the sensation, wishing he had never made the journey to that hateful place.

Perhaps it is this movement, or perhaps he makes a noise, for Belle begins to stir. She smiles up sleepily at him as she stretches her legs out beneath the blanket.

"To bed with you," he orders, turning to face the fire. The words are roughened at the edges and he clears his throat. "You need to be up early tomorrow," he continues, as he lifts the poker and jabs at the coals. The embers flare into new flames, but they seem dull to him. Lifeless. "I'm running low on straw and need you to go and fetch some for me. It's a long way into town."

 

 

 


End file.
